Starter devices for electric motors, such as asynchronous motors, comprising semi-conductor elements have been used for some time. By controlling the voltage applied to the motor in one, two, or three of the phases a reduction of the torque and current provided to the motor is achieved during start and stop operation. The phase gating or firing angle is used as a measure of the amount of energy supplied to the motor. Current half-cycles of alternate polarity flow through the load which is connected to the output of the three-phase controller with there being a time interval during which no current flows and which is determined by the phase gating between each two successive current half-cycles.
Three-phase controllers are normally provided with three pairs of semi-conductor elements, such as thyristors, which are connected back-to-back in parallel, so called anti-parallel configuration. Since the thyristors become the cost-determining factor, three-phase controllers having only two pairs of thyristors are also used. In these so-called two-phase three-phase controllers, the remaining third phase is in the form of a conductor, which cannot be switched.
However, when the control is limited to only two of the three phases, unwanted effects in the form of for example a DC component in the motor current appear. During start up operation a smooth and gradually increased torque is desired but this DC component appearing during start up sometimes creates a retarding or oscillating torque. This can be both disturbing and damaging to the controller system, the electric motor, and to the motor driven load.
The U.S. Pat. No. 6,930,459 B2 discloses a method for reducing the influence of a DC current component in the load current of an asynchronous motor by applying two different control methods. It has proven to be difficult to entirely remove the DC component by applying control methods since the control point is unstable and the DC current appears momentarily.